BALTIMORE — You’re hoping every at-bat is the start of the awakening for Orioles star Gunnar Henderson.
There was no better opportunity than Tuesday’s seventh inning when Baltimore suddenly had the Cubs on the ropes after Adley Rutschman’s two-run single and Chicago right fielder Seiya Suzuki’s airmailed throw to the plate that put the tying runs in scoring position with two outs. Henderson could tie the game or give the Orioles the lead with one swing off Cubs right-hander and former teammate Jacob Webb.
Instead, he struck out on three pitches. The Orioles didn’t have another man reach base in the 5-2 defeat that dropped them to eight games below .500 and 4 1/2 games back of the final wild-card spot in the mediocre American League.
“Any player that’s in that spot, you want them to come through. You want it for them, and you want it for us,” manager Craig Albernaz said. “When Gunnar Henderson is at the plate, I think any pitcher is going to heighten a little bit [with] a little more focus. That’s a testament to him and how good of a player he is. Tonight, he came up short.”
The problem is Henderson has been coming up short for most of the season. The Orioles have no shortage of deficiencies and other individuals underperforming, of course, but relative to expectations, Henderson’s season is arguably the biggest reason why they find themselves in last place in the AL East days before the All-Star break.
In May, you could brush this off as a slump or slow start. When you’re well into the month of July, it’s a bad season.
We know star players can’t do it by themselves. Just ask Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani how many playoff appearances they enjoyed together in Anaheim.
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But it’s very difficult for a club to thrive if its aircraft carrier — or perceived one anyway — doesn’t play anywhere close to that level. Instead of rebounding from an underwhelming 2025 impacted by some physical challenges, the 25-year-old Henderson has been even worse a year later, looking much more like an average player than the budding superstar who finished fourth in AL MVP voting in his age-23 season.
Expecting Henderson to have a league-MVP-caliber campaign every year would be unfair, but when there isn’t much of an argument for him even being the team MVP in a season when no Oriole in particular is having a monster year?
That says a lot.
If Henderson were having a season even comparable to last year’s slash line of .274/.349/.438, the Orioles would be closer to .500 and in better shape in the wild-card race at the very least. But a .699 on-base plus slugging percentage in 417 plate appearances amounts to being right around league average. Even the 16 home runs that are saving the optics of his season feel hollow when considering more than half of those came in late March and April when he was also striking out an alarming 33.6% of the time.
To his credit, Henderson has cut down on the strikeouts dramatically and raised his walk rate since the start of the season, but his power has waned in the process with a slugging percentage of .363 since May 1. For what’s worth, his Statcast numbers have also dipped substantially from where they were a couple years ago, which makes one less inclined to shrug this off as a stretch of bad luck.
No matter how you slice it, Henderson has been a major disappointment in 2026, and it’s not just the bat.
After stealing a career-high 30 bases last year, Henderson has seven in 91 games and has been picked off an inexcusable five times this season. Metrics differ on his up-and-down defense at shortstop, but it’s tough to ignore the fielding miscues that look like lapses in focus as much as anything else.
8For its part, the organization doesn’t seem to know how to help Henderson get back on track either. Tuesday marked the first time all season that he didn’t bat first or second — he hit third instead — in the lineup, so the front office and coaching staff are trying to defer to his track record and show as much confidence in him as possible. Albernaz deflected multiple questions about Henderson being picked off again in Cincinnati last weekend, which was quite a contrast from comments after he was picked off twice in the same game in Kansas City back in April.
To be clear, this isn’t about some need to punish or embarrass the 2024 All-Star starter and 2023 AL Rookie of the Year as Henderson is fully aware that he’s not having the season anyone wanted or expected. While one could fairly argue the merits of lowering him to fifth or sixth in the order at this point, there’s always a human element at work if the organization is concerned about his state of mind. But something has to give — and very quickly — if the Orioles are going to even consider buying at the trade deadline in a few weeks, let alone make any kind of real run for a playoff spot.
After a poor start to 2026, Baltimore’s pitching is holding up its end of the bargain as the rotation ERA ranks sixth in the majors (3.69) and the bullpen ERA is fourth (3.52) since May 22. But the offense remains painfully mediocre with Henderson’s slash line being .228/.323/.389 over that same period, which has resulted in the Orioles moving no closer to .500.
Looking back, it was unfair to view Henderson’s first half of 2024 as the new standard on which to judge him, but unlike most of the other members of the Orioles’ disappointing young core, he’s proven himself to be much better than this over multiple seasons. It was only four months ago that he was shining on a global stage in the World Baseball Classic, which now feels like a long time ago.
The Orioles turning around what’s looking like a sinking ship for the second straight season begins with Henderson awakening. The clock is ticking louder and louder.
Tuesday was just the latest of too many examples of Henderson coming up short this season.
